There has been a wide variety of electronic mechanisms for locking and securing things. In this connection cards, badges, variously shaped and configured keys and the like having electronic or electromagnetic data imprinted upon them have been used in connection with readers (with or without computer support) to identify and control locking and unlocking of the mechanisms and access to various facilities and devices. Many of these arrangements are extremely sophisticated and expensive to initially install, as well as to maintain and to reprogram.
Dallas Semiconductor of Dallas, Tex. has developed what they call their "Touch Memory" chip that is able to read or write with momentary contact. They have housed this chip as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,025,141 in a stainless steel container which they call their "MicroCan". This coin-shaped container is 16.3 mm in diameter and 3.2/5.8 mm in height. They have mounted it with one flat circular face of the can secured to the flat surface of a generally rectangular thin flat ID card or a thin flat generally oblong-shaped key fob (See FIG. 1). The user holds and manipulates the card or fob so as to insert the "MicroCan" into a generally forwardly facing lock receptacle.
Such manipulation of this type of device is awkward and difficult to the point of being merely annoying for some, but virtually unusable for others. The motion involved to position the "MicroCan" in the proper orientation with regard to the lock mechanism receptacle and then insert the "MicroCan" into the receptacle is not one that is usual or comfortable for most people. It involves first a side-to-side and up-and-down aligning with a receptacle that is, to a large extent, blocked from view by the hand of the user and by the card or fob structure. This alignment cannot be approximated, but must be rather exact for the following reason: the "MicroCan" must make sufficient electrical contact at its peripheral edge as well as at its flat forward face, so there must be a close contact fit between the peripheral edge of the "MicroCan" and the receptacle. In other words, there is a very close fit between the "MicroCan" and the receptacle. To the extent the user holds the card or fob away from the "MicroCan" to avoid blocking the user's view, the less aligned the user's hand is with the "MicroCan"; this increases the awkward feeling of the operation. The converse is also true: moving the user's hand closer to the "MicroCan" may lessen the awkward feeling but will tend to increase the interference with the user's free view of the "MicroCan" relative to the receptacle.
It is also noted that when gripping the card or fob for such an operation, the user's thumb and fingers are in general alignment with the plane of the card or fob but transverse to the direction of forward and rearward movement of the "MicroCan" into and out of the receptacle. This tends to amplify the sense and feeling that multiple successive movements are required: first, the transverse aligning movement in the direction the fingers are aligned, then the separate forward movement in a direction at right angles to the direction in which the fingers are aligned. If the alignment is inaccurate at first, additional transverse aligning and forward inserting movements are required.
It will also be noted that it is important that the forward face of the "Microcan" be generally parallel to the face of the receptacle during the insertion. This in turn requires that the long axis of the fob handle not only be generally parallel with the receptacle face but that the correct rotational attitude of the fob handle about the long axis be maintained.
Fumbling around to achieve such alignment and insertion tends to be frustrating, like struggling to insert a key in a dark hallway or at night.